Does leadership behaviour predict wellbeing across time?

Testing normal causality

The statistically best predictors (sought from leadership behaviour, arrow 1 in figure 6.1) of each wellbeing outcome are shown in tables 6.13-6.21.

From these tables we can see that the proportion of the variance in employee wellbe-ing explained by leadership behaviour varied between 2 and 25 %. Work engage-ment (16-25 %) seemed to be best and irritation at work (2-7 %) and somatic stress (3-4 %) least explained by leadership behaviour. When each baseline measure was controlled for the explanation rates rose to 30-73 %, being lowest for depression across T1–T3 and highest for work engagement across T2–T3. There was a tenden-cy that the rank-order stability of employee wellbeing indicators decreased along with the lengthening of the time lag between the measurements.

The most striking finding was that health-promoting leadership had the most signifi-cant longitudinal effects on the various indicators of employee wellbeing when the baseline measure of wellbeing was controlled for. Besides this, only transformational leadership was significantly related to an improvement of team climate across 15 months (T1–T2). Thus the other leadership behaviours did not seem to have any unique role in explaining the change in employee wellbeing between the measure-ments when health-promoting leadership was taken into account. This however does not mean that the other leadership behaviours are totally insignificant in relation to longitudinal changes in employee wellbeing. When examined alone, they may have a significant role, but when examined together with health-promoting leadership they do not seem to have any unique contribution to the explanation.

A more detailed examination revealed the following significant relationships for

health-promoting leadership. First, health-promoting leadership predicted a change in organizational commitment (an increase) and depressive symptoms (a decrease) across 8, 15 and 22 months’ time lags. Second, health-promoting leadership was linked to improvements in team climate and occupational self-efficacy across 7 (T2–

T3) and 21 (T1–T3) months. Third, work engagement was increased and somatic stress decreased across 15 months by promoting leadership. Finally, health-promoting leadership seemed to reduce job exhaustion on the long-term (T1–T3).

The only wellbeing indicators of which changes across time were not explained by leadership behaviour were irritation at work and turnover intentions. Health-promoting leadership predicted irritation at work across 8-22 time lags, but when the baseline measure was controlled for the effect disappeared. Of the leadership behaviours, fair leadership was most systematically (negatively) linked to turnover intentions (i.e. at 8 and 22 months’ time interval), but it did not explain any change in turnover intentions across time.

Tab. 6.13 Leadership behaviour at T1 predicting wellbeing at T2 (time lag 15 months)

Work engagement

T2 Job exhaustion

T2 Irritation at work T2

Predictors at T1 M1

β M2

β M1

β M2

β M1

β M2

β Transformational

leadership -.05 - .08 - .08 -

Authentic lead-ership

-.03 - .10 - .03 -

Fair leadership -.07 - -.04 - -.04 -

Health-promoting lead-ership

.45*** .07** -.24*** -.04 -.14*** .01

Abusive leader-ship

- - .04 - .06 -

Outcome at T1 - .74*** - .63*** - .72***

R² .20*** .60*** .06*** .40*** .02*** .51***

Note. Abusive leadership as a predictor was removed from the work engagement model, as it did not correlate with work engagement (r = -.09).

Tab. 6.14 Leadership behaviour at T1 predicting wellbeing at T2 (time lag 15 months)

Good team climate

Tab. 6.15 Leadership behaviour at T1 predicting wellbeing at T2 (time lag 15 months)

Occupational

Note. Transformational and abusive leadership were not used as predictors for self-efficacy, as they did not correlate with self-efficacy (r = .07 and -.08, respectively). Contrary to the beta coefficient (marked in red) in the multiple regression model, authentic leadership had a positive zero-order correlation with self-efficacy (r = .12).

Tab. 6.16 Leadership behaviour at T2 predicting wellbeing at T3 (time lag 8 months)

Note. Abusive leadership as a predictor was removed from the work engagement model, as it did not correlate with work engagement (r = -.04). Contrary to the beta coefficient (marked in red) in the multiple regression model, fair leadership had a positive zero-order correlation with work engagement (r = .27). Regarding the exhaustion and irritation models, authentic leadership had a negative zero-order correlation with exhaustion (r = -.17) and irritation (r = -.10).

Tab. 6.17 Leadership behaviour at T2 predicting wellbeing at T3 (time lag 8 months)

Note. Contrary to the beta coefficient (marked in red) in the multiple regression model, abu-sive leadership had a negative zero-order correlation with team climate (r = -.12). Abuabu-sive leadership as a predictor was removed from the organizational commitment model, as it did not correlate with organizational commitment (r = -.07).

Work engagement

Tab. 6.18 Leadership behaviour at T2 predicting wellbeing at T3

Note. Abusive leadership as a predictor was removed from the self-efficacy model, as it did not correlate with self-efficacy (r = -.02). Contrary to the beta coefficient (marked in red) in the multi-ple regression model, transformational leadership had a positive zero-order correlation with self-efficacy (r = .13). Transformational and authentic leadership were not used as predictors for so-matic stress, as they did not correlate with soso-matic stress (r = .07 and -.06, respectively). Contra-ry to the beta coefficient (marked in red) in the multiple regression model, authentic leadership had a negative zero-order correlation with depressive symptoms (r = -.17).

Tab. 6.19 Leadership behaviour at T1 predicting wellbeing at T3 (time lag 22 months)

Note. Abusive leadership as a predictor was removed from the work engagement model, as it did not correlate with work engagement (r = -.07). Transformational and authentic leader-ship were not used as predictors for irritation, as they did not correlate with irritation (r = -.05 and -.08, respectively).

Tab. 6.20 Leadership behaviour at T1 predicting wellbeing at T3 (time lag 22 months)

Good team

Tab. 6.21 Leadership behaviour at T1 predicting wellbeing at T3 (time lag 22 months)

Occupational

Note. Transformational and abusive leadership were not used as predictors for self-efficacy, as they did not correlate with self-efficacy (r = .09 and -.04, respectively). Contrary to the beta coefficient (marked in red) in the multiple regression model, authentic leadership had a positive zero-order correlation with self-efficacy (r = .13).

6.1.7 Does leadership behaviour predict wellbeing beyond job